In case you haven't noticed, thousands and thousands of people are extremely pissed about proposed MBTA fare hikes and service cuts. Last week saw crowds in Copley Square. Yesterday, teenagers on high school vacation flooded Downtown Crossing and later on the State House, making their case for youth job funding and student commuter rights.

This just in: MAYOR TOM MENINO was supposed to help open the Frog Pond to ice skating on Friday. The city has just announced: not gonna happen.

Why?

Too warm.

From the press release:

Due to the uncertainty of the weather the Frog Pond announced today that they are cancelling the Opening Ceremonies with the Mayor and the Skating Spectacular scheduled for this Friday, November 18^th

The folks at Men's Health magazine must have been boozing it up at work when they wrote their America's Drunkiest CIty list. Boston placed dead last on this top 100 drunkiest list, making us the "Least Drunk" city in the US while Fresno; Reno; Billings, MT; Riverside, CA; and Austin, TX were named the most spirited.

Well, that didn't take long: 2010 claimed its first homicide victim a mere 135 minutes into the New Year, the Boston Police reported this morning. The victim, an unnamed 25-year-old Hispanic male, was discovered with a gunshot wound outside 315 Geneva Avenue in Dorchester around 2:15 this morning, and was pronounced dead at Carney Hospital.

I once saw a bumper sticker that read “Rape a Gay Whale for Jesus.” Assuming that the driver was not a homophobic bible boy who likes to diddle blowholes, it was possibly the most brilliant protest ever forced upon my eyeballs. I wish I had a massive oak tag shouting that catch phrase with me earlier this afternoon.

It's not uncommon for movies about Boston to open windows onto this city's foul underbelly. That said; while there is no doubt a rich history of organized crime here, the majority of real-life perps are into much more mundane hustles, like scalping Red Sox tickets.

In his feature-length passion project Scalpers - which premieres this Wednesday on Lansdowne Street (info below) - Boston-born actor Jay Giannone (Three Kings, "Entourage," Gone Baby Gone) marries his experiences from growing up bad in Beantown with behind-the-scene lessons learned from working in Los Angeles.

Okay - between our Back Talk Q&A and this blog post - we've been a bit David Cross crazy for the past few weeks. Who can blame us? The guy's a genius, and a funny one at that. And it seems we're not the only fans; David's Boston date sold so quickly that the Comedy Connection had to add a second show, and Cross himself decided to tape his new special during both of them.

In reference to the O.J. Simpson verdict, Chris Rock once brilliantly said that white people hadn’t been so mad since CBS cancelled M*A*S*H. He struck pop philosophy platinum with that comment; Caucasians sure do get attached to our television comedies. For proof of our obsession, one need not look past the regrettable tears that well for NBC sitcom finales, or the 3,000-plus It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia disciples who crammed the House of Blues last night to witness the cast’s live production about pedophilic sodomy (link goes to last week's Phoenix interview with cast member Glenn Howerton).

Last Saturday night at midnight, Johnny Cupcakes brought late-80s gamer geek classic The Wizard to the Coolidge. People who crave their fix of both Nintendo nostalgia and exclusively designed Powerglove posters flocked to the theatre early that night. I arrived at 11:15 to find the line stretched down the alley.

Where's Bulma?

I was up pretty late last night. How could I have been so irresponsible on a Wednesday? Well, I have an awful lot of work to do before Friday morning, and the list taped to my apartment wall still has a few items that aren’t crossed off: “finish armor,” “paint gloves,” “make arm bracelets,” and a couple other bits and pieces that I’ll have to wrap up tonight.

Full disclosure here: In case you haven't noticed, Puma has bought giant ads in the Phoenix for the past two weeks. Furthermore, I own several pairs of Pumas, and have romanced South Floridian women three times my age, who I believe they’re calling “pumas” these days.

With that out of the way, I can commence with ethically informing you that I expect to be a drooling mess aboard Puma City for the next three weeks.

The last Chuck Klosterman event I went to was about five years ago in Brooklyn. He had just released Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, and the New York Press declared him “The Biggest Douchebag on the Planet,” or something like that.

And while Chuck’s response to the page one dishonor holds no legitimate weight now – since cats like Matt Taibbi, Alex Zaitchik, and Mark Ames (who wrote the hit) came out of that paper – at the time it nonetheless secured me as a fan of someone who a stubborn counterculture dip like me is supposed to loathe: “If anybody gave a shit about what they have to say,” he countered, “then they wouldn’t be writing for the New York Press

Common Art, a weekly faith-based open studios, provides poor and homeless folks space and materials to make art. Each week between 10 am and 2 pm on Wednesday, these artists gather at the studio space in Emmanuel Church in Boston. The time serves as a reprieve for its participants: a chance to concentrate fully on a drawing, an acrylic or perhaps a puppet construction.

"I believe that all women have the right to kiss my ring."

I gagged over a Page One story in The Globe this morning about Cardinal-Archbishop Sean O’Malley and his stubborn pro-life views. Apparently, he’s excited about Obama but worried that the president-elect will open drive-thru abortion clinics at all major intersections.